IMPORTANT Memo To Blog Visitors Looking For A Job....

 ARE YOU EMPLOYABLE??!! Do you leave a lasting impression to interviewers?

Please read this and do not say it is too long,it was sent in by someone who interviewed a few blog visitors....IT IS FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!

Hi Stella.

Hope this mail meets you well?

I really need to share this with BVs and I hope they all get to see this.

I thought about sending this in, earlier. But I didn’t want to seem ‘holier-than-thou’, as compared to others. I am not perfect, i am learning, I have my flaws and I am still building a career. So I am in no place or position to put people down. 

However, I have interviewed a number of people from this blog forum and I even interviewed two more people today, for a certain position. I told myself I must make some observations to help fellow graduates out there. 

I had two interviews today from two BVs. Let me play out the scenario.

These two BVs are graduates with NO EXPERIENCE. They have never worked before but their CVs are well constructed So i call them in. Mind you, this is a firm that requires a highly technical qualification.

Both of them didn’t do too well in the required tests, but it was okay because we were not looking for experience. After the usual questions and tests, we ask: 

Do you have any question for us?

Candidate 1: I need to know what the company is into? What kind of clients do you have? What is the scope of your business and how well can I advance in my career here? Sir/Ma, the truth is I have no experience and have never worked before. But I am hardworking and I am willing to learn. I need to groom my career and I need to be in a position where I can gain experience and know how it is done. Kindly re-consider my application.

Candidate 2: (putting two hands on chin and places phone on the table) I want to earn N150,000 and nothing less. Please I hope I won’t do marketing? I can’t work beyond the specific working hours, even if there is a deadline. I like to plan my time and no employer should interrupt. I won’t take below N150,000 (yet you were told you did poorly in the test and you admitted you had no experience and you are currently out of job) And I want to know what position you are recruiting for (yet you applied for the job). I want to advance in my career.

Please which of the candidates would you recommend for the job? We keep complaining about how bad this country is and how evil employers are and how there are no jobs. Let me ask you, ARE YOU EMPLOYABLE??!! Do you leave a lasting impression to interviewers?

As someone who is involved in recruitment, let me give us graduates some interview tips. Most of us are always punctual, but we still miss the target – IMPRESSING THE INTERVIEWER. Once you impress an interviewer, the possibilities are endless. If there is no available position now, your CV would be kept specially for future purposes. Or even forwarded to someone who needs what you have.

1. Please be presentable!! WTH?!! You people come in with un-ironed clothes. Even after you have been given one weeks notice. I know all the electricity challenges in Nigeria, but your presentation can actually make you get a job. Don’t you know? No loud makeup or long lashes, please!! No rolled up sleeves, it should be long sleeve or short sleeve.

2. Composure and body language!! You slouch on the chair, put your phones on the table and you have your two hands on your chin. Like, what da hell?!! Some of you even come chewing gum and letting your hair fly loose. You are shaking because you are frightened. Do you even get that scared of God when you pray? Come off it!! 

You are laughing because your interviewer laughs. Or you want to act as if you know it all, just because you have been told you are smart. Please, calm down. No one will employ an egoistic person. Drop your phone too!! 

Put on ‘silent’ and in your bag or pocket, not on the table. No employer has any business with your phone.

3. Communication. Do not, at any time, try to interrupt your interviewer. Its bad. Allow them to talk and you respond. Be audible when spoken to.  Wetin you dey fear? It’s either you are given the job, or you aren’t. Calm down, no rush. Say what you know and leave the rest. You are either too forward or too slow. You want to say what you aren’t asked (which might work if you applied for marketing) or you can’t even express yourself well enough. Why nau?? Even the English sef.....

4. Read your CV again. Just incase you are asked what is on there, you should be able to respond, without looking dumb. I don’t care if you lied in there. Just be smart enough to defend it- yes, because employers like smart people!! Stop lying on your CV. You wrote 200 things and you only know 2. You think your employer is stupid?

5. Transparency. Just say what you know show smartness, truthfulness, humility and willingness to learn and you would be considered. I know a woman who went for an interview with her baby, while others wrote ‘single’ on their cv. She was breastfeeding and couldn’t leave her baby at home. It was the baby that the boss saw that he made sure they employed her. He even helped her hold the crying baby, when he saw her at the interview door. 

Why? 

Cos he knew all those other women were married and lying. And he was tired of seeing lies on his desk. Some of us like to feel ‘i am smart’ but on a job you can never know it all, the truth will show.

6. Sensitivity. Be sensitive to the environment, reactions and interviewer. You don’t want to come across as someone difficult. Don’t gossip with other interview candidates. Sometimes, cameras are installed and you are being watched as soon as you walk in. 

Mind your business and do what you came for. Even if you have reservations you won’t want an employer to overstep, why not wait until you get the offer letter. Which you can accept or reject? Why start ‘warning’ them even before you are shortlisted? It’s uncultured behaviour, I must say.

7. Be polite to everyone you meet. From gateman to cleaner. You don’t know who is who. You don’t know if that short man by the door is the MD collecting fresh air and you just pass without ‘good morning’. And try and google more tips. Google is your friend.

Let me state a bit of my experience in the short life I have lived, so far. I am 26 years old and I graduated in 2010. I got my first job even before I finished university. How? I went to sell human hair to one man who was buying for his wife. She saw me on the road, liked my hair, took my number and said she would send her husband to buy hair for her through me.

 The man calls me to meet him at a bbq fish joint and as I was marketing my product to him, his friend who was listening, arguing and even getting on my nerves at some point, offered me a job there and then- IN LAGOS!! 

I was yet to even start my final exam and I told him. He said whenever you come to Lagos call me. My parents thought it was a joke. I called the man after 3 months, he directed me to his office in VI, I met the HR manager, did the interview. And I went back home with an employment letter. Seems like a joke right? You might even think I slept with the man.... LOL. God knows my gain on that hair piece was 10k, as I was just a distributor for a retailer. And I needed the money to complete payment for my project typing. But look what I gained, just because I composed myself well. 

I may have insulted the man off, being that I wasn’t even supposed to be giving him any audience since he was not the one buying the hair-sef! The job pay was a little less than 100k, but it was a start.

I had not even gone for NYSC. So when I was called for service after one year, I went to pick up my call-up letter and I already had a direction as to where I was going and what I was doing. As compared to my classmates, who were still wearing tank tops and bum shorts. Since then, I have never gone for an interview that I haven’t been called back for.

 Sometimes of my company clients approach me ‘Please leave your job, come and work for me, I will pay you more’.

At some point, my former boss relocated and shut down the company. I was out of job for few months. I met someone at a bachelors’ eve and we discussed to the extent that on the monday morning I was in his office to start as a contract project manager, for a contract he was just being awarded and he had been looking for who to manage. I learnt alot on that project, that I still capitalize on till today. And the story goes on......

I know there are may be no jobs around, but opportunities abound. 

Be prepared.

 That’s the boys scout motto. Yes, because if you are looking at being employed you can get referrals from anyone at anytime. You go to club dancing like a slut, dressed like a gansgtar. Do you know who the person on the next table is? My boss and I had to look for people to get involved in a project for an entertainment brand, at some point. We went round clubs on a friday night searching for candidates. Sounds funny right? But my boss can be a crazy woman and YES we got the people we were looking for. 

Compose yourself to a point that everyone would even feel bad that you are job-hunting and you would be the first person that comes to their mind when people are asking for employable candidates (not saying you should be a saddist oh) It can be your neighbour you always insult or you boyfriends elder brother that you disregard because he is not a fine boy.

Lastly, stop waiting for fairy tale jobs. They don’t ever prepare us for the battle ahead, when in university. You are made to seem like your course is extremely needed and you will get a job once you hit 2:1. The oil companies and enviable jobs are there. Some are lucky to have them, others may never, others may have to struggle a bit before they get there. Until then, keep gathering whatever experience and adding to your CV. 

Try and intern too, instead of just sitting at home and wasting time. If you have no interest in office work, then do business and discipline yourself enough to face it squarely.

Thank you Stella.

Good luck to all!!

*WOW WOW WOW...THANK YOU ''M''....I even learnt somethings from this wonderful lecture.